Is The MacBook Pro Keyboard Apple's 'Biggest Design Screwup'?

Since it was launched, many of the features of Apple’s latest MacBook Pro have failed to catch the imagination. The promise of the TouchBar has not been built on, macOS has become ever more subservient to iOS, and now trust in a fundamental part of the package is failing.

That part is the keyboard. It has become clear that the geekerati believe the keyboard to not be fit for purpose. Casey Johnston has suffered from multiple faulty MacBook Pro keyboards with numerous exchanges and replacements. She has decided this is enough:

I still had my 2013 MacBook Pro around, so I sold my 2016 MacBook Pro back to Apple’s refurb program, and now I just use the 2013 as my laptop (I used the recovered money to build a PC, lord help me). This old MacBook Pro is still fine, and most importantly, all the keyboard keys work. The new MacBook Pro is gone. When I started working at The Outline, I was offered a choice of a new MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air for my work computer, and I chose the MacBook Air, with its good keyboard that doesn’t break from dust. I’m fully committed to this bit.

This keyboard has to be one of the biggest design screwups in Apple history. Everyone who buys a MacBook depends upon the keyboard and this keyboard is undependable.

Just like the issues around the longevity of the battery in the iPhone, control over the perception of the MacBook Pro keyboard is slipping away from Tim Cook and Apple. On a practical level, the MacBook Pro keyboard is not Apple’s biggest design screw-up… the screw-up is in not publicly addressing the issue and allowing the idea of a broken keyboard to become established online.

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